Preserving Cancelled & Unreleased Video Game History Since 1999
Welcome to Games That Weren't!
We are a Cancelled & Unreleased Video games archive with prototypes, developer history and assets for many computers and consoles of all ages. A non-profit large archive dedicated to preserving lost games that were never released to the public. Sharing history and stories from the developers, assets and more before it is too late. GTW has been preserving lost video game history online since 1999, and long before that offline.
Please Browse our archive and discover the many entries that we host for many different platforms.
Sadly not much is known about this particular game pack which was announced by Beyond Belief.
We can only assume that it would have been a budget pack of 3 simple games, but we need someone to confirm this.Contact has been made with Jim Smith who used to run Beyond Belief, but we never heard any more from him.
A shame really, as we are quite curious to learn more about these other C64 titles.We’ll try anyway to find what we can, but don’t expect too many miracles too soon for this one :(..
Game Hunter is yet another mysterious Anirog title which seems to have gone astray since some initial mentions in magazines and adverts.
We’re not entirely sure at this point what the game was about, and there seems to be no other versions of the game on other platforms.
Considering that the partners of Anirog have sadly passed away, it could be very tricky now to try and find out who was behind this title. It could be a bit of a slog!
Very early days, but does anyone have any scans of the adverts?
Not so much a title as the year this unfinished game was worked on, CyberCore was a project by the C64 sceners Carrion and Zephyr, the latter from a group called Inflexion Development that dissolved in 1993.
According to Carrion, who has posted two screenshots of the game on the C64 Scene Database, the game would have been a shoot-em-up in the vein of the famous Galaga. The screenshots represent in-game graphics that would appear every four levels.
The first screenshot shows an alien landscape, the second showing a castle set atop a mountain, with a pair of eyes floating in the sky behind it. Both screenshots show a power bar and a life meter, along with an image of your character.
It was presumed that nothing else remained of the game, or we could expect that Carrion would have posted it with the screenshots. However, Carrion mentioned that there was possibility of more screenshots and screen tests of baddies and various bits and pieces… and true to his word, these were dug out in July 2013 – which you can download from here!
Given the high quality of the screenshots it would be a shame if nothing else existed, if the arcade section of the game captured the same quality and atmosphere the screenshots create then it could have been something special. It is not known how much code was ever done for the game, but we hope to find out soon.
For now though, it looks to be an open and shut case.
Galactic Conqueror was described as a an action and strategy game by Titus Interactive. According to sources, the game was in fact released in 1988 for Amstrad CPC, Amiga, Atari ST and DOS.
The Games Machine magazine in March 1989 mentioned that the Spectrum and C64 versions were coming soon along with the Amstrad version, but it seems that only the Amstrad version made it. Not surprisingly, as the Amstrad was much bigger in native France than the Spectrum or C64.
The game had mixed reviews, and the Amstrad version was a bit crap… http://www.cpczone.net/game/376 . But did a C64 or Spectrum version ever get under way?
Thanks to Martin/Stadium64 – we learn that the manual for the CPC edition includes loading instructions for the C64 and Spectrum versions, suggesting that there could be something to try and find in the future.
With past records, we doubt much was ever started, if indeed anything at all. Though we must chase all routes and see if anything *did* get started before we can close the case which TGM has made for us.
Do you know anything more about such a conversion?… Get in touch!
A obscure title by Simon Birrell, creator of Strangeloop for Virgin Games.
Essentially, this game stems from the ripping off of one of Simon’s own ideas which was "Slideways", also in GTW. Cascade ripped off the Slideways game and released their own very similar game called "Traz"
As a way of getting somekind of revenge on Cascade later after Simon finished university, Simon created this game which was based on the same code as Slideways and was along the same lines.
The game was completley finished, but no company was interested. This was believed by Simon to be a fact that the industry had moved on from this genre of game. For years the game has sat on a disk, until by some blind luck it turned up…
Simon in later years left to work in Spain, and normally this means anything like C64 disks get left behind or lost. This seemed to be the case when we originally asked Simon about the whereabouts of the game. It couldn’t be found some 3 years ago when we first found out about the game.
However, in 2007 – Jazzcat got an email from Simon who had miraciously found the disk in Spain. This last remaining copy was then sent to Australia for Jazzcat to save from obscurity. Luckily everything worked, and after a quick bit of fixing and tweaking by Skeletor… GTW can present you the full game, thanks to Simon, Jazzcat and Skeletor.
The game isn’t really like Traz as such, though the graphics feel similiar in some respects. This is much more of a maze based game where you have to avoid monsters. Instructions are included.
According to Simon, there exists a level editor hidden away in the game, which is probably accessed by a key combination. It could well have been opened up to the commercial release like Traz’s editor was. We haven’t found it yet though :-)
It’s a nice title, and we’re very pleased its been saved from the abyss for people to enjoy for the first time. Please feel free to feedback in our forums about this game.
A long lost game finally found and put to rest… Case closed!…
It was thought that this possibly may have been released as Combat Crazy, due to the fact that the game has a tune in it mean’t for G.I. Hero, and also G.I. Hero and Combat Crazy sound like two similar styled games. However it was found not to be the case.
G.I. Hero was a game originally released for the Spectrum and Amstrad. It received poor grades and even in play testing the play testers thought the game was a joke.
It sounded impressive with the use of Mike Singleton’s technique from Dark Sceptre to have large sprites walking around on the Spectrum without colour clash, but it was still a rather shite game. At the end of the day, it was merely a simple maze game where you walked around with a rifle and shot a few random soldiers. You had to get out of the jungle alive, and finding your trusty dog would help you out.
Adverts were released for G.I. Hero, but it sounds like the game was so terrible that they decided wisely not to release the C64 version which was slightly delayed at the time. We assume that is the case based on information told by Richard Hewison.
Richard also had this to say which shed light on the game further…
“I got in contact with a C64 artist for info on a published Rainbird C64 conversion (Weird Dreams) and it turns out that he also did the graphics for the C64 conversion of GI Hero.
His name is Steve Hall and I’ve told him you’re interested in any info he might have. He was doing the graphics for Daisysoft (aka Delvin Sorrell) and as soon as he mentioned this I vaguely recalled Delvin’s involvement in G.I. Hero. ”
So it seems that we have some leads now, and could possibly find something of the game.
We got in touch with Delvin (now Patricia Curtis), and she informs us that the game was ported across from the Spectrum along with Steve Hall, and the port was actually complete. She believes she was actually given back a mastered copy of the game at some point too, though feels it could have been the Spectrum edition.
It is great to hear that the game was completed – but sadly it seems very much that this has been lost in time. Patricia confirming that she no longer has any of her development disks. Steve was the same as well sadly, so it could almost be a case closed :(
Even though fans of Giana Sisters (The banned Mario clone) were treated to an official sequel in the way of "Hard n Heavy", an unofficial sequel was planned back in 1994.
This sequel was planned by none other than Cyance, otherwise known on the demo scene as Reflex. These guys as you may remember, produced the groundbreaking "Mathematica" demo and also under Cyance, produced the cool "Centric" tron game.
It is not quite known the exact plans of the sequel from the German crew, but it was never really heavily publicised on the scene.
All that currently remains at the moment are the game tunes by PVCF, which are sampled based covers of the original tunes, along with some neat sampled SFX.
Certainly from listening to the tunes, and observing Cyance’s previous "Centric" game, Giana 2 could have possibly been something special.
Details from the developers have sifted through to GTW, and the game was never released or finished due to some copyright constraints. The game never got past the alpha phase, where it was playable but lacked all the levels and features.
Sadly the game could well be lost, as the developers have apparently not got the game any longer, which is a huge shame. Quiss looked through all of his disks and confirmed he could not find anything, PVCF also had nothing sadly. Maybe someone got hold of a copy, someone else in Reflex we don’t know. But it looks like only the music ever survived this gaming tragedy.
The final part in the Gauntlet trilogy (on the Commodore 64 at least) was to be an isometric affair, owing more to Pacmania and 3D Ant Attack then the previous overhead offerings that were converted by Gremlin Graphics for U.S. Gold.
The game features some awesome graphics by both Martin Holland and Hadyn Dalton, including some incredible character selection screens. The scrolling is relatively smooth, and the game is pretty good overall.
The music is fantastic, and was created by Tim and Geoff Follin. The two tunes present are in the same league as the awesome Ghouls and Ghosts tunes that Tim produced a few years before.
The game was due for release in the Summer of 1991 after some well received reviews from the press. The game apparently suffered massive delays when the programmer fell ill and U.S. Gold couldn’t get the game off the development system and onto cassette tape.
Due to the delays, Gauntlet 3 was to be eventually released onto the Kixx label, but unfortunately this never happened either, as they could just not get the game onto tape format. Disk? Not a problem though. It strangely seemed to mirror the issues that were had with Murder!, another well known GTW title.
Martin Howarth however contacted GTW briefly many years ago and clarified that he did not suffer a breakdown of any sort (which had been originally the rumour for the game’s unreleased status). Martin confirmed that he was actually made redundant by Software Creations, and after that point, Software Creations had problems trying to master the game onto tape from Martin’s source code.
Martin didn’t move onto any other platforms after this, and sadly got left behind. After a break from programming, Martin got back into it, and now works at BarCrest. It is hoped that Martin will shed some more light about the development of the game and issues at the time in the near future.
There is also however the remarkable story that Gauntlet 3 did actually sneak out in a very short supply and only on disk. This was believed to be specially for those who were signed up to the U.S. Gold software club. A few of us luckily have a copy, including Mat Allen and the webmaster (though missing disk 2). A copy is also in the procession of someone which is still sealed, and copies still occasionally surface online for obscene amounts of money. It is likely through one of these copies that the game was cracked and leaked back in the day.
So thankfully you can all still play it, though its not friendly with all emulators, so be warned. The original disk images have also been added to the download for posterity, thanks to Jazzcat. Additionally if you want to see the game ending, then check it out at C64 endings.
A lovely finale that you can all thankfully play, but one which you will struggle to find a fully packaged release.
A rather interesting title now from an obscure company called Gamesware. Gamma Strike is a kind of a light phaser/target pack, with the target board plugged into the computer.
ACE magazine (issue 9) reported on the game and said the following:
“Another creative use for home computers has been found by a Liverpool based company called Gamesware. They are currently marketing a game called Gamma Strike which retails at about the “23 mark for C64, Spectrum and Amstrad and comes in a large box complete with two air-powered plastic pistols , some small soft plastic pellets and a target mounted on a touch sensitive board that plugs directly into your computer – plus, of course the necessary software.
The idea is for one to four players to take turns shooting at the target. Your scores are then displayed on your monitor. With three types of game including Alien Shoot-out where you try to outdraw a bunch of alients. Gamma Strike is a novel product aimed at the younger player who’ll probably get quite a lot of satisfaction from it, as long as an adult supervises and ensures the pistols are used safely.”
Hmmm, sounds like a potentially dangerous pack, with maybe the ability to fire pellets at others in the room. To be honest, the game probably never got past the standards phase, and was ruled to be too dangerous. And it seems that it didn’t… well, at least in a mainstream way!
Gamesware struggled to get the product onto mainstream shelves due to the health and safety hazards of the package. They resorted to shifting just a few copies over mail order and through petrol stations in the Manchester and Liverpool area!
Recently the game’s lead programmer Simon Phillips got in touch with GTW whom shared the above information. Simon was only 15/16 at the time and assembled a team of himself, another programmer, a graphic artist and a musician to construct 3 games to go with the gun technology. They only had a month, but they produced 3 reasonable games to go with the gun..
1. Competition Shoot-out – A simple game where two players compete against each other shooting the target and getting scores. Written in BASIC.
2. Voyager 19 – A better title with two space rockets where each player takes turns to fire and score depending on where the target was hit. Each shot would send that player’s space rocket up towards the top of the screen. First one into space would be the winner.
3. The Alien Team – Probably the most intriguing title of the pack, where the game hardly uses the target until the very end boss. The game is predominantly a side scrolling SEU.
The package had its limited release, and the developers got a small bit of money without royalties (Which may not have been a bad thing in the end!). However, it is only now that the games have finally been preserved.
Simon kindly posted one of the last packages of Gamma Strike known (Possibly the only one left in existance), where GTW has taken high quality photos of the packaging, internals and also fully preserved the 3 games which came with it!
The only problem is that at present the games are completely unplayable without the target, and Alien Team needs someone to shoot the target to start the game! Well, shortly after release on GTW, Triad sorted Alien Team and Voyager 19 out (The two key games) and released versions which allow you to use keys to replace the target, as well as the original hardware if you ever discover it! :) .
A great discovery for GTW, and finally preserved after all these years!
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